Microsoft's Aug. 1 launch of its Windows Live Spaces blogging/social-networking platform has not been a smooth one. Customers of Microsoft's successor to MSN Spaces are reporting a variety of performance, publishing, rendering and browser-compatibility issues since Microsoft rolled out the final version of Windows Live Spaces on Aug. 1.

Windows Live Spaces Program Manager Greg Phipps acknowledged on the Space Craft Live Spaces blog that the Spaces team "disappointed a bunch of you with the issues we had in our rollout last night." Phipps noted that in the first 12 hours that the new platform went live, poor Spaces performance was the order of the day.